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Yuanding 24th Year, the thirteenth day of the first month.

The war-torn Ningzhou Road was the stage for the most crucial battle since the Rebel Army first swept through.

Under the command of Duke Dingguo Zhang Wei, the Court’s army, consisting of thirty thousand armored Imperial Guards and fifty thousand Government Soldiers from various regions, had spent months operating in northern Ningzhou Road. At last, with thirty thousand soldiers from Yunjiang Road and a six-thousand-strong force from the Demon Race cutting off the rebels’ retreat, they succeeded in encircling several of the Rebel Army’s key strongholds.

Meanwhile, fifty thousand Government Soldiers from Beiyuan Road and Jianglin Road had been deployed to the South Bank of the Nong River to serve as reserves for the main army.

After analyzing the situation, Duke Dingguo Zhang Wei concluded that the Rebel Army was at a disadvantage. They lacked logistical experience, and their discipline was bound to be abysmal during the winter. In contrast, his own forces were superior in every aspect, from troop numbers and discipline to supplies.

Therefore, he decided to end this war before the Lantern Festival!

The order for the final encirclement was issued on the morning of the tenth. At dawn on the thirteenth, just as hundreds of ritual masters dyed the northern sky of Ningzhou Road a brilliant gold, Duke Dingguo Zhang Wei’s army began its advance. Empowered by a series of magical command talismans, they pushed relentlessly toward the treacherous strongholds garrisoned by the Rebel Army.

Just as Duke Dingguo Zhang Wei had anticipated, the offensive went smoothly. The rebels had no will to fight, abandoning their frontline strongholds in a single day and retreating to Yangshan City, the capital of Ningzhou Road.

The city was named for Yang Mountain, which lay to its north.

But the Rebel Army had capable leaders of its own. They stationed twenty thousand armored soldiers on Yang Mountain, using the city’s defense systems as a new bastion to blunt the Imperial Guard’s assault.

Frustrated by the setback, General Zhang Wei cursed the Inspectorate and the Governor’s Office for having lost Yangshan City in the first place. He then ordered the Demon Race army advancing from the north to complete the encirclement as quickly as possible and personally led his Central Army to the front to oversee the battle.

In the end, the war did not conclude by the Lantern Festival. However, Duke Dingguo Zhang Wei had already submitted his victory memorial to the Court. With the encirclement complete and the Rebel Army’s supply lines severed, victory seemed all but certain.

「The twentieth day of the first month. Noon.」

After five days of preparation, the final battle of the encirclement began.

Shangjing City was already preparing to welcome the triumphant return of its army. Outside the southern gate, a massive sacrificial altar had been erected under the supervision of the Ministry of Rites.

Two days later, however, the news they received was of a catastrophic defeat. The Imperial Guard had been annihilated, and the elderly General Zhang Wei had been executed by the rebels on the battlefield. Sent to Shangjing City along with this news was a proclamation that the Rebel Army had founded a new state and consecrated a temple. An accompanying manifesto openly declared that the Court was an enemy of the world, while they, the rebels, were acting in accordance with the will of its people.

The manifesto read as follows:

"Since the dawn of the Human Dao, the emperors of every dynasty have ruled by its tenets. All the neighboring lands of Zhongzhou revered our Central Plains. Yet now, the Four Seas are in turmoil and the people live in disharmony. The Emperor governs with Divine Techniques, treating his subjects as meat for the carving block and his officials as slaves. This has caused the rites and teachings of the Human Dao to collapse and morality to be inverted, a corruption that has now infected all levels of society.

I, in my fiftieth year, heard before the new year that the Emperor, for his own selfish desires, slaughtered hundreds of thousands of souls, stirring grievances across the land. Now, acclaimed by the people, I have gathered a host in the Liangjiang Land of Ningzhou and Yunjiang. Our soldiers are strong and our generals are many. We have the favor of the heavens and the will of the people. I hereby offer my life to restore peace to the land, establish a Grand Ancestral Temple on Yang Mountain, found the state of ’Qi,’ and crusade against this injustice.

Yet I fear the common people may not grasp the gravity of this cause, and so I issue this manifesto to the world. When the armies of Qi arrive, the people need not flee. My command is strict, and my soldiers will not cause the slightest harm. Those who rally to my cause shall be pioneers of the Human Dao, and I will treat them as my own kin. Those who oppose me defy the will of heaven and shall surely face the wrath of Celestial Soldiers!"

This subversive manifesto spread throughout the land in less than a month. The Court, however, was preoccupied with debating the failures of the Demon Suppression Department, even attempting to have it disbanded. In the end, the Emperor issued an edict sentencing Niu Yi, the Commander-in-Chief of the Demon Suppression Department, to two hundred strokes of the rod. This barely managed to silence the public outcry.

By the time their discussions concluded, they looked up to find that the Rebel Army from Ningzhou and Yunjiang had already advanced to the north bank of the Nong River. From the high ground of Shangjing’s Inner City, one could even see the commander’s banners fluttering over the rebel camp!

To make matters worse, numerous small-scale rebellions had broken out in Beiyuan Road and Jianglin Road. After lengthy deliberations, the Cabinet and the various ministers came to a startling realization: aside from the elite army in the north, they had no available troops left to suppress the uprisings!

Thus, they sent envoys to True Yang Mountain, hoping to borrow the strength of the forces in the Liangjiang region to quell the rebellions in Yunjiang and Pingzhou.

...

「The North.」

On the Yunhai Grassland, towns established in recent decades had, with the help of numerous cultivators, grown into cities of various sizes.

Princess Xia Yao’s domain now reached the border of the frozen northern lands. In recent years, her forces had clashed with those of the north in hundreds of battles, large and small, yet neither side had managed to gain a decisive advantage.

Deep within Yunhai City, a palace encircled by the Shiquan River was suffused not only with a dense Water Spirit Qi but also with pulsing streams of golden light.

On the top floor of a great stone pavilion behind the palace, Xia Yao awoke from a deep meditative trance. The moment her eyes opened, a dense Water Spirit Qi swirled around the Array she sat upon. This Array was connected to the entire Shiquan River, nourishing the Spirit Veins and Qi Sea within her body.

Aided by her Divine Technique, Xia Yao’s cultivation had progressed daily over the years. Her mastery of the *Hundred Waters Secret Technique* was now infinitesimally close to the Third Realm, lacking only the final step: ’Jiao Transformation.’

In the Cultivation System of Lishui Prefecture, reaching the Third Realm required one to embody a Jiao and control water with its Primordial Spirit. Naturally, an ordinary person could not achieve this. It required a spiritual connection to a Jiao Dragon, which, when combined with the *Hundred Waters Secret Technique*, allowed one to cultivate a Jiao Dragon Primordial Spirit and break through to the Third Realm.

’Just a little more!’

Xia Yao glanced up at the golden halo coalescing above her head and suppressed the impulse to use her Divine Technique to force the Jiao Transformation. She now commanded nearly half of the Xia Dynasty’s karmic fortune. If she were to unleash her full power, she could contend with a Lord, but the price would be too high.

"Take your time. We have plenty of it."

A flash of green light heralded the appearance of Jiangcun before the cloud bed. He looked his wife over for a moment, then said, "The affairs of this world are like cultivation: you do all that is humanly possible, then yield to the will of heaven. Forcing the issue will only backfire, just like the current chaos in Pingzhou and Yunjiang."

"The Emperor has grown impatient. He never went through the process of tempering his heart, and now that half of the dynasty’s karmic fortune has been taken from him, he’s bound to be unable to suppress his desires. It’s only natural that he’s lost his composure."

Xia Yao rose and walked to the window, listening to the gurgling stream outside.

Jiangcun leaned against her side. "The Cabinet actually wants you to send troops back to suppress the rebellion!"

Xia Yao shook her head. "Since when in all of history has a border army been sent to suppress an internal rebellion?"

Just as she finished speaking, an Immortal Crane descended from the sky, landing in its roost in the rear courtyard.

"This bitter, cold land... It’s been hard on the crane."

Jiangcun’s gaze traveled past the towering stone fortresses toward the distant plains. It was now the end of the second month, and the heavy snow had yet to cease, blanketing the grasslands in a sheet of white.

Xia Yao didn’t continue the topic.

The two of them stood in silence, seemingly waiting for something.

After a moment, a female disciple from Lishui Prefecture approached the couple, holding a bamboo slip inscribed with a coded message.

Jiangcun took the bamboo slip but handed it to his wife without reading it himself. "Intelligence from the Northwest, I presume? Has something changed?"

"The Northwest Army has answered the call of the rebel manifesto from Yunjiang and Pingzhou!"

Xia Yao’s brow furrowed.

Jiangcun froze for a second. He took the bamboo slip, read it quickly, and asked, "Is this Fellow Daoist Changqing’s doing? Come to think of it, Yang Kui’s rebellion was also indirectly because of him."

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